All Ireland Centre Manager of the Year 2018

A retailer of 28 years’ experience, Michelle recognises that delivering world-class customer service to Victoria Square’s brands and customers is at the heart of all that the centre team does. She makes sure that the entire team is recognised for excellence, supported with training to support to their needs.

Victoria Square’s success is built on great people coming together, creating memorable experiences. Measurement of engagement is essential to grow through: visiting the brands in their stores weekly, by monthly meetings with 85% attendance, and better collaboration and engagement in events.

Customer engagement is key because Victoria Square is a destination. Michelle is passionate about giving loyal customers a reason to choose Victoria Square. The robust retail events calendar generates an ROI of 340%, catering for families, schools and additional-needs customers.

For example, the four-week Discover our Museum installation, offering workshops in partnership with a local museum, increased dwell time by 6.3% and generated an ROI of 1,791%. The Christmas light switch-on attracting 48,000 visitors against 4,500 at the city centre event.

A key strategy has been to maximise the growing tourism spend which has grown from 7 to 10%, offsetting the declining Northern Irish spend.

To celebrate the centre’s 10th birthday, a month-long calendar of events showed how Michelle brought the team, customers, stakeholders, charities and community together.

The result is reflected in strong KPIs:
• Footfall up 0.5% to 11.98 million in a very fragile market
• Sales up 4.67% like-for-like and 6.03% total vs 2016
• 0.12% saving on service charge
• Seven voids
• For new tenants: Boojum, Rio Brazil, Pretty Green and Barrhead Travel